Funniest snake oil theories

[Markw4]

Cool, thanks, Mark.

Still looking for the exact wording having to do with lists of reasons, but found something kind of related in Haidt's book, The Righteous Mind. Will attach excerpt below.

 

[VenusFly]

Emotions has no place in logical reasoning.

Unfortunately that is not how the world works right now.

Hopefully society can rise above emotions and superstition. Doubt it though.

 

[Jim the Oldbie]

Maybe not one study, depends in significant part what it might say. Also, with humans, replication is usually highly advisable.

True, although unfortunately that would likely add another zero or two to Dr. Geddes' estimate.

 

[DPH]

Still looking for the exact wording having to do with lists of reasons, but found something kind of related in Haidt's book, The Righteous Mind. Will attach excerpt below.

Thanks, Mark. Brings up a different, albeit interesting point, as you point out. Does make the argument that brighter folks (by whatever measure that may be) aren't any more "open minded". But I find the whole obdurate stance that "he believes this way, he must be stupid" argument, well, a bit stupid from the start. Although, by human nature, I'm sure I do it anyhow.

 

[DF96]

I firmly am of the opinion that such studies, conducted within fully sound scientific principles, protocols and procedures...would generate a lot of red-faced individuals. The supposition that there are individuals who hear distinct minutia within music, would be dis-proved, poked so many holes, essentially laying waste the entirety of "Hi fidelity".

On the contrary, if this happened (and I certainly think it is possible) it would demonstrate that 'hi-fi' is achievable and is often achieved with fairly modest equipment. It would blow a hole in audiophilia and other claims that mere 'hi-fi' is not good enough.

Also possible is a finding that for a few people the current notion of 'hi-fi' is not quite good enough. This group will almost certainly be much smaller than many imagine; I suspect that many who believe themselves to be in this group (because they find hi-fi unsatisfying) actually require less than hi-fi (i.e. euphonic distortion) not more than hi-fi.

 

[billshurv]

What would be amusing was if they discovered the 5% and discovered that their auditory system acuity is such that ALL hifi sounds rubbish and they don't really care. Not unlike the running joke of orchestral musicians not having great systems as they know nothing compares to actually being there in the thick of it. (and yes I know about hearing damage in classical musicians).

 

[awkwardbydesign]

Your ears aren't sensitive to absolute phase directly. Rarefaction or compression, they care not. Perhaps some secondary effects exist within a replay chain that may be audible.

I once found a bass drum sounded muffled on a system I had (Heybrook HB3 speakers, Velleman K4000 power amp) at the time. After checking various things, I discovered I had reversed the speaker leads. Reconnecting them the right way round restored the kick sound; sort of "bof" instead of "fob"! Repeatable and distinct, but only ever with that combination.

 

[vacuphile]

Yeah met a few idiots like that over the years.

I am in the process of ridding myself of one of my most prominent parts, and this road to partial and hopefully selective autocanibalism is paved by even greater idiots. (+ those of the money-grabbing kind, dressing up like idiots, hard to tell.)

 

[vacuphile]

Interesting thing is, highly intelligent people on average tend to be more over-confident that less intelligent folks. It appears that highly intelligent people are very good at thinking up long lists of all the reasons they are right, but no better than average at thinking up all the reasons they might be wrong.

You must be talking about the happy IQ 120's.

 

[DPH]

I once found a bass drum sounded muffled on a system I had (Heybrook HB3 speakers, Velleman K4000 power amp) at the time. After checking various things, I discovered I had reversed the speaker leads. Reconnecting them the right way round restored the kick sound; sort of "bof" instead of "fob"! Repeatable and distinct, but only ever with that combination.

That's quite different than phase reversal of the original music stream, as your reversal has much to do with relative interactions with your speakers and space. Relative phase of components is preserved when the input stream is flipped wholesale.

 

[Triodethom]

Interesting thing is, highly intelligent people on average tend to be more over-confident that less intelligent folks. It appears that highly intelligent people are very good at thinking up long lists of all the reasons they are right, but no better than average at thinking up all the reasons they might be wrong.

Well you have not worked for the management team I do the inverse is true.

 

[scottjoplin]

That's quite different than phase reversal of the original music stream, as your reversal has much to do with relative interactions with your speakers and space. Relative phase of components is preserved when the input stream is flipped wholesale.

What about the reversal of an asymmetric waveform such as a sawtooth (as suggested earlier) changing the relationship between the harmonics and thus the timbre?

 

[Charles Darwin]

Earl Geddes said a preliminary study to start working on that would cost somewhere between several thousand dollars and a few tens of thousands of dollars.

It appears there are people on both sides of the arguments that would like to see the results of such research with the expectation it would confirm their preexisting beliefs. And of course there are some people with no particular expectations one way or the other, and probably they are mostly part of the vast majority of people who couldn't care less about any of it one way or the other.

Anyway, so far nobody has been willing to put up the money so proof can be had. If anybody wants to start taking up a collection, I would probably chip in a little, but not a lot. Anybody else?

I'm not talking about a fully fledged scientific study, I'd be happy with proof from certain individuals that they can hear substantially more acutely than the average person.

This woulds not cost more than an individuals afternoon but they would have to show the absence of visual clues.
So far I can't think of anyone who has even done the free Klippel distortion test. They usually come up with reams of feeble excuses why a test would not show an accurate result. Normally they claim that it is too stressful but it is only stressful if you built a career on a reputation, deserved or not.

 

[gpauk]

I think "acutely" is the wrong word. Differently, perhaps. People can be trained to hear things that are not there - eg to easily hear auditory illusions - the test should cover that possibility too.

 

[DF96]

That's quite different than phase reversal of the original music stream, as your reversal has much to do with relative interactions with your speakers and space. Relative phase of components is preserved when the input stream is flipped wholesale.

I am struggling to grasp the difference between inverting the music stream, and inverting the speaker connections. These two would only differ significantly when there is lots of even-order distortion. Have I missed something?

 

[DPH]

Just flip one driver vs the entire speaker. How it interacts through the crossover changes completely. That's all

 

[scottjoplin]

Just flip one driver vs the entire speaker. How it interacts through the crossover changes completely. That's all

Yes, but that isn't what he said

 

[DPH]

When you start looking at low frequency modes in a room it is. Unless he meant he had flipped both speaker vs. one. I was assuming just one.

 

[scottjoplin]

Hopefully he will get back and clarify, either way I took it as the initial wave from the kick drum was pressurising the room as it should when he corrected the phase reversal.

 

[DPH]

Yeah, I guess I sped read it and perhaps misinterpreted what he said. Also figured if it was a big difference in response, it was probably from some sort of cancellation rather than being on the compression side vs rarefaction. To be determined, as you say.